An Air India Boeing 787-9 flying from Frankfurt to Delhi was diverted to Jaipur on Wednesday 14 October after air traffic control received transponder code 7500, the code for hijacking or unlawful interference1. People familiar with the matter told The Times of India that the pilots denied selecting the code and told controllers that everything on board was normal2. The full security protocol ran anyway. The aircraft was parked on a remote bay, everyone on board was screened, and nothing was found2. Aviation and security agencies are now trying to work out how the code appeared2. For crews, the case shows how little a reassuring radio call changed once 7500 was on an Indian controller's screen.

What happened to AI2030

Flight AI2030 left Frankfurt at 19:45 UTC on 13 October, according to open ADS-B data from adsb.lol, which shows the Boeing 787-9 VT-TSE operating as AIC20303. AirLive also named VT-TSE as the aircraft4, and Aerospace Global News reported that it still wears the livery of Vistara, which merged into Air India in November 20245. Indian carriers currently fly a longer route to India because Pakistani airspace is closed to them2.

The code was received while the aircraft was in the Mumbai Flight Information Region1. The Times of India said Mumbai air traffic control systems picked it up2, while the Press Trust of India reported that the alert came in through Ahmedabad air traffic control6. The time has not been published. "After Mumbai ATC received the aircraft squawking the code 7500, they spoke to the pilots who reported that all operations were normal on the flight. But protocols have to be followed in situations like which was done," people in the know told The Times of India2. The aircraft was sent to Jaipur instead of Delhi.

It landed at Jaipur International Airport at around 9:35 a.m. local time (04:05 UTC), Jaipur airport head Charan Singh told The Indian Express, as reported by Gulf News7. There were 306 passengers on board7. The number of crew has not been published.

On the ground in Jaipur

The 787 was escorted to an isolation bay, where teams from the Central Industrial Security Force, local police and the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad inspected the aircraft, passenger baggage and cargo holds2. An Anti-Terrorism Squad team was involved and the National Security Guard was placed on standby in New Delhi1. Pilots and passengers were taken off in phases under security supervision1. Regular flights and terminal operations at Jaipur continued normally throughout, PTI reported6.

Once the checks were complete, the Aerodrome Committee assessed the situation, concluded that the alert had been resolved and cleared the aircraft and crew to depart2. Passengers reboarded, and the same crew flew the extended journey on to Delhi2, landing shortly before 15:30 local time according to Aerospace Global News5. Air India said the aircraft was diverted "following a perceived security concern" and added: "The relevant security agencies carried out the necessary checks and have cleared the aircraft and crew."2

The first reports were confused. Police sources said the landing followed a reported bomb threat8, and The Times of India headlined its first report that way1. An airport official told the Hindustan Times: "It was a hijacking rumour, not a bomb threat."9 Every later report concerns the transponder code. None mentions a separate threat by phone or e-mail.

Pilot error, aircraft or ground system?

The explanations on offer contradict each other. Charan Singh told The Indian Express that preliminary indications suggest the pilot may have activated the alert by mistake7. The people who spoke to The Times of India said the pilots denied it2. Senior 787 pilots quoted by the same paper put the chance of the aircraft inadvertently ending up on 7500 at "one in a trillion". "Each digit has to be physically entered. There is no button that can be inadvertently pressed," they said2. Senior controllers told the paper that Mumbai has a new air traffic control system and that a software error was "unlikely"2. India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation is investigating, according to sources at the regulator cited in Indian media8.

The open ADS-B record cannot settle it. adsb.lol tracked the aircraft, with some gaps, from Frankfurt to a point over the Gulf of Oman, where coverage ended at 01:57 UTC with the aircraft at about 39,000 ft squawking a routine code3. It reappeared only on the descent into Delhi at 09:27 UTC3. The part of the flight over India where the code reportedly appeared, and the landing in Jaipur, fall inside that gap.

Why "all normal" did not cancel 7500 in India

The code exists so that a crew can raise the alarm without explaining the threat over the radio5. India's Aeronautical Information Publication spells out what happens next. When a pilot who has selected 7500 is asked by ATC to confirm the code, the pilot "shall, according to circumstances, either confirm this or not reply at all", and the absence of a reply "will be taken by ATC as an indication that the use of code 7500 is not due to an inadvertent false code selection"10. UK Civil Aviation Authority guidance to controllers says they should not mention unlawful interference on the frequency unless the pilot does first, since it "might attract the attention of the hijacker"11. In Jaipur, the pilots' reported assurance did not stop the protocol: a full check was still carried out2.

For the crew, that meant the same treatment as everyone else on board. The pilots were taken off the aircraft under supervision with the passengers1, and the aircraft and crew had to be formally cleared by the Aerodrome Committee before they could fly again2. The same crew then operated the leg to Delhi2. Under the UK version of the European rules of the air (SERA.11005), a commander facing unlawful interference "shall attempt to land as soon as practicable at the nearest suitable aerodrome or at a dedicated aerodrome assigned by the competent authority, unless considerations aboard the aircraft dictate otherwise"12. In this case controllers sent the aircraft to Jaipur.

India has been here before

In 2019 an AirAsia India first officer on a Delhi to Srinagar flight was told by the captain to send an emergency code and selected the hijack code instead. The DGCA found him guilty of "negligent conduct" and suspended him for three months, and the captain was warned to be more vigilant13. In January 2025, Air India flight AI2957 from Delhi to Mumbai squawked 7500 for around three minutes before the captain told ATC that the code had been pressed inadvertently14. A central committee was formed and an aerodrome committee was set up at Mumbai airport, where a full emergency was declared15. The FAA's Aeronautical Information Manual addresses the same risk from the cockpit side: on routine code changes, pilots should avoid passing through 7500, 7600 or 7700, because that causes "momentary false alarms at automated ground facilities"16.

Indian security agencies also have a heavy caseload on the bomb-threat side. An agency report seen by PTI counted 1,019 threats against Indian aviation in 2024, 687 of them in October, and classed 86 per cent as non-specific or hoax17. Each one goes to a Bomb Threat Assessment Committee at a designated airport, which decides whether it is specific, triggering diversion, an isolation bay and fresh anti-sabotage checks, or non-specific18. Hijacking itself carries life imprisonment under India's Anti-Hijacking Act 2016, and the death penalty where a hostage, security officer or bystander is killed19.

Third 7500 alert in three weeks

AI2030 is the third widely reported 7500 alert in three weeks, after Corendon flight XR456 to Nuremberg on 13 October and flydubai flight FZ1073 on 30 September5. In the Corendon case, German police told dpa that the pilot meant to select 7600 for a radio failure and keyed 7500 by mistake20. The flydubai case involved a genuine attack in the cockpit5. The three have no established common cause, but in India, as AI2030 and AI2957 both show, a 7500 alert has run its full course even after the crew said nothing was wrong.